Agree, groups are potentially fun and interesting and a really good group might inspire you to do your best. But those groups are hard to find, and amateur writers can tear into other writers’ work unmercifully. Not good.
Anyone can write just as anyone can sing. But well enough to get paid for it?
Here’s a wild concept you might drop into the mix, if people really hope to get published: Whoever told you to write for yourself was wrong. The only important person in the room when you’re writing is the READER.
I’ve asked writers to visualize their target audience, cut out pictures of similar people from magazines and tape them to their computer screens. Consult with them throughout the day.
I had a wonderful woman friend when I first started out...she was not a writer but a very smart woman with a very clear mind. I’d just sort of write TO her. Does this sentence/chapter communicate to Helen? If not, revise. Or delete.
In fact, most self-pub books would benefit from having about 1/3 of the pages deleted and the writing tightened up. I’m not going to say that at the authors’ meeting, as they’ve already made those mistakes. Yes, they are, for the most part, retired people. Some quite interesting. One fellow has written and sold 25 audiobooks, just one in print. He knows what he’s doing in his particular market, which is mostly made up of long-distance drivers. Truck drivers love his work. He (a retired professor) writes FOR them. The books roll out, the checks roll in. Nice.
Best luck to you :)
My favorite author and sometime conservative commentator Mark Helprin once talked about the battles he carried with his editor over commas. Another favorite author, name withdrawn, over two dozen literary mysteries published, used in one of them the word “peddle” for “pedal”, three times, a common error on these pages, where I saw it for the first time, by the way. I contacted him on Fakebook, and, admitting his mistake, he wrote that the proof reader goofed. I didn’t have the nerve to ask a follow-up question, but did he have an editor? Do editors catch and correct such errors?